


Better

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Adopted Peter Parker, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asexual Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Feels, Humor, I Don't Even Know, Light Angst, M/M, Memes, Minor Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Parent Tony Stark, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Being Tony, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Trans Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-18 11:48:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14852184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Generally Bucky doesn’t really do dates. But first dates yield no real pressure and it’s been a long time since he’s had a good night out.*On principal Tony doesn’t do dates because they’re mostly a waste of his time and efforts. Since taking Peter in two years ago his life as been a bit of a mess trying to figure out how to raise a teenager who has lost so many people that are close to him and, on top of all that, is trans. That coupled with his regular work schedule hadn't left him a lot of time for a relationship.





	1. Chapter 1

Generally Bucky doesn’t really do dates. He used to like meeting new people and doing new things but so much has happened since he was in his early twenties that has changed… everything really. So his being on a date is a fluke of epic proportions and shockingly it’s going well. Tony is easy to talk to and adorable, but given that this is a first date Bucky lets the usual anxieties around relationships dissipate a little in favor of just enjoying the moment. First dates yield no real pressure and it’s been a long time since he’s had a good night out. Probably years if he’s honest.

“So Rhodey has this whole ass tank and drops it as his superior’s feet and is like ‘is this what you’re looking for?’ And that’s how he got promoted,” Tony says, shaking his head.

Bucky laughs, “how is it possible to lose an entire tank?” he asks.

Tony shrugs, “no clue but if you’ve ever met the people Rhodey works with you wouldn’t be surprised. Seriously, I’ve met rutabagas that are smarter.”

“I knew a kid in high school who wanted to go into the military and he once asked what a planet was,” Bucky says and he laughs as he watches Tony’s soul die a little. He’s so expressive, which is something Bucky likes given that it takes the guesswork out of their interactions.

“Please tell me he failed the psych eval,” Tony says.

“I don’t think he did, but he ended up not going into the military for some reason. Now he’s a flat earther.”

Tony wrinkles his nose, “is that the stupid fuck that shot himself into the sky to prove the earth is flat?” he asks.

“No, but if they knew each other I wouldn’t be surprised. Nothing about that guy surprises me anymore,” he says. Once someone asks what a planet is faith in them is impossible to have.

“How does a person not know what a planet is? We fucking live on one,” he says.

“If it helps explain things I’m certain he was dropped on his head as a baby. I mean so was I, but I at least have enough remaining brainpower to figure out what a planet is,” he says.

Tony shakes his head, “I don’t get these people. How can you think the earth is flat? Do they also think the sun revolves around the earth? Do they live in the fifteen hundreds?” he asks, clearly lost on the logic there. Bucky considers, for a moment, proposing a theory that flat earters are actually the result of time travellers from the future dropping people from the fifteen hundreds in the modern time line but he’s not sure Tony would know he’s joking. He saves it for Steve later because he’d get a kick out of that even if Sam would give him an unimpressed look like always.

“There’s also this theory that forests don’t exist,” Bucky says instead just to get the pleasure of watching Tony basically short circuit. He starts laughing as Tony blinks a few times, trying and failing to find the logic in that. “In the theory’s slight defense the people who believe in it think that trees used to be like ten miles high and what’s left are basically shrubs. So I mean if you ascribe to the weird logic of mountains being tree stumps than it does make a strange kind of sense.”

“No. No it does not make any kind of- trees do not grow that big,” he says. If he wants Bucky can explain everything _else_ that went with that theory but he doesn’t. Mostly because he’s said too much weird shit already but Tony, unfortunately, picks up on that. “How do you even _know_ all that?” he asks.

He winces, “I spend a lot of time researching conspiracy theories. I don’t believe in any of them but at this point it’s a hobby that I know a lot of stuff about.” Sam likes to make fun of him for it but he likes baseball and can reproduce a stupid amount of knowledge on it too. Everyone has weird stuff. Steve has a weird thing for Pintrest projects but Sam doesn’t make fun of _that_ even though he spends an unhealthy amount of time on the site.

“ _Why_?” Tony asks, clearly baffled.

Bucky shrugs, “I got bored when I was in the hospital after I lost my arm so I ended up in one of those Wiki suck holes and spent seven hours reading on Dyatlov pass and it sort of spiraled from there. Once I spent like five hours reading theories on how Bigfoot is an interdimensional being,” he says like a fucking idiot. And here things were going well and he had to off and reveal how weird he is. Actually it might be for the best, his strange love of conspiracy theories is probably one of the less odd things about him and certainly the least problematic thing he has going on in regards to relationships.

“And interdimen- you know what, I’m just going to leave it at that. Better than Pepper’s weird habits- she thinks that paperwork is a sufficient replacement for pets,” Tony says, clearly not agreeing with this at all.

“I have a friend who’s a snake person,” Bucky says and Tony makes a face. “Yeah, I agree but he has like ten and he loves them all.” Thor is… well, Thor. He’s a difficult guy to explain given that he looks like a dude bro but acts like a medieval knight and also likes snakes for pets and that doesn’t even touch on his Norse myth themed family. It occurs to Bucky that his friend group is not exactly normal, which is really only confirmed by his taste in dating partners. He likes to think Tony is a better choice than Brock but he doesn’t let himself think much beyond that. Relationships don’t have a tendency to work out for people like him. But he _does_ like Tony even if he knows this is doomed anyways.

Tony shakes his head, smiling, “you lead an interesting life, Bucky,” he says and Bucky laughs a little.

“You’re telling me. I met a celebrity sitting on a step drinking my coffee before you tried to offer me like fifty thousand dollars because you thought I was homeless and then asked me out. That’s my record for the weirdest encounter I’ve had, by the way. Except maybe that one time I ended up at the president’s bachelorette party,” he says. But Steve knew Peggy through that time he worked with Angie.

Tony winces, “in my defense you really did look like a homeless guy. No offense,” he says.

Bucky shrugs, “I get that a lot actually. Sometimes kids mistake me for Jesus,” he adds just to make this date even weirder. Thankfully Tony doesn’t react by acting like his strange nature, his _true_ nature, is some kind of problem to be solved though. Instead he takes Bucky’s weird interests and stories in stride and asks more about them. Its nice to have someone take a genuine interest in his life even if Bucky is sure it won’t last once Tony gathers the true scope of Bucky’s oddity.

*

On principal Tony doesn’t do dates because they’re mostly a waste of his time and efforts. People that weren’t interested in him due to his celebrity or bank account usually held no interest in him at all not that he blames them much. His personality is… lacking. And beyond that since taking Peter in two years ago his life as been a bit of a mess trying to figure out how to raise a teenager who has lost so many people that are close to him and, on top of all that, is trans. Its not a subject Tony ever put much thought into before Peter but when he had finally made the leap to come out last year Tony had had to unlearn a lot of stuff and figure out how to adjust to his kid quick.

Of all the things he didn’t expect out of that it had been the reaction of the public essentially telling him that letting Peter transition was tantamount to child abuse because for some reason at fourteen- now fifteen- Peter was too young to know his own damn gender. Aside from Tony finding that absurd- he’s sure most people can figure out their fucking _gender_ after fourteen years- all his research said the same thing. Not allowing a trans person to transition led to depression, anxiety, and a suicide attempt rate so high Tony literally cried when he applied it to Peter. He couldn’t in good conscience decide that he knew better than his kid only to result in a forty percent chance in him attempting suicide. They talked and as it turned out Peter had done his own research and Tony didn’t see the harm in at least allowing Peter the space to explore the whole gender thing.

The difference had been night and day as far as Peter’s mental health. He had gone from being quiet, reserved, and depressed to a generally happy, bubbly teen with a bright mind and a brighter future. That had been all Tony needed as far as proof went to know that Peter transitioning was the right thing to do. But the media blowback had been immediate and harsh and try as he might it’s difficult to keep Peter from it. The fact that Peter remained happy and healthy after all of that did more to reaffirm that he made the right choice but it had left him in a relatively dateless state. Between Peter’s unexpected issues, mass media blowback, and his regular work hours he didn’t have time for dates. So Bucky had been something of a fluke and he’d also been an impulse decision. Not bothering with dating isn’t exactly new to him, but dating a guy is something new to him entirely.

Tony hadn’t expected their date to go well but Bucky had been charming in kind of an odd way, and he treated Tony like a normal person instead of a celebrity. It made him alluring in a way Tony hadn’t known he’d been interested in until that moment. He thought the date would be a one off thing and then he’d go back to his regularly scheduled mess but that’s now how things happened. Instead Tony ends up staring at his phone for an embarrassing amount of time after his date wondering what the hell the etiquette around this stuff is. Its Peter all but falling through the door that removes his attention from the blank message to Bucky.

“Hey dad,” Peter says casually and Tony smiles, still unused to, but warmed by the title. He hadn’t really put much thought into being a father, and for a long time he had no interest in kids because he was selfish and then because he hadn’t had the time but adopting Peter is probably the best decision he’s ever made. “How was your date?” he asks, bright and interested.

“Fine,” Tony says, underselling it. Bucky had been great really- mostly because of how unusual he is in a way that’s not also creepy, and he’s funny. His phone buzzes and he immediately looks over in a way he never does given that most of his phone activity is Pepper trying to get him to do paperwork and thankfully its not Pepper but a text from Bucky.

_This raccoon is straight up trying to steal my prosthetic_

The text is accompanied by a picture of a raccoon with its little paws around the wrist of the prosthetic trying to drag it off. Tony can’t help but snort and start laughing as he imagines the raccoon trying to drag the body part away. His phone buzzes again and there’s another picture of the raccoon holding what Tony has to assume is a fake eye.

 _He settled for this glass eye I had lying around instead. I’ve named him Rocket_.

Who even has fake eyes lying around? But then Bucky also has a plethora of knowledge on conspiracy theories too so in his defense this doesn’t seem out of character for him.

“Guess it went better than fine if you’re laughing at his texts. Unless Pepper said something funny but she usually calls,” Peter says, standing a little on his toes like he could see Tony’s phone from where he’s standing. He can’t, obviously.

Tony smiles a little, responding to Bucky. “It went really well, yeah. He’s funny and a little weird and its nice that for once someone isn’t trying to put on some kind of show for me.” Usually people act the way they thought he’d enjoy for whatever reason and it’s obvious that Bucky has no interest in doing that. Tony is grateful for it because he finds people acting certain ways for his benefit annoying and tedious.

“I didn’t even know you weren’t straight,” Peter says and Tony shrugs.

“Yeah. Kind of always had a preference for women so it was easy to hide, but uh. People weren’t really fond of any kind of gay people when I was a kid. But I figured if I spent my time telling you to be who you actually are I should probably lead by example.” And boy were people surprised, especially those irritating fan boys who glorified his time as a war mongering, alcoholic, misogynist piece of shit. Why the hell anyone would glorify _that_ he has no idea but it had been somewhat pleasant to let go of that after all this time even with the strange amount of blowback to it. Bucky, miraculously, seems completely oblivious to any speculation around his sexuality and hadn’t even brought it up on the date. He’s grateful for it too.

Peter smiles and walks over to him and hugs him, “well I think that’s great,” he says and Tony frowns, hugging him back.

“Thanks, I guess,” he mumbles. It’s an unexpected reaction but not an entirely unwelcome one. It takes a moment for it to occur to him that of all the people in his life he told mostly accidentally on Twitter Peter is the only one to have given him any kind of positive reaction and he hugs his kid a little harder, appreciating that Peter would go out of his way to be supportive. He figures everyone else either figured it out already or just didn’t care- its not like he thinks either Pepper or Rhodey really give a damn about his sexuality but he thought they’d at least have a reaction. So Peter’s hug is nice and he appreciates it.

*

Steve tries to shove food at Bucky while he leans away, having no interest in whatever Pintrest recipe that is. “Steve I’m not hungry, I just ate, I told you this,” he says, trying unsuccessfully to get away from the food.

“How’d your date go?” he asks, all but dropping the plate in Bucky’s lap and he sighs. Guess he’s eating twice.

“Pretty good actually,” he says. Tony has kept in near constant contact with him since too, which he hadn’t expected. He had sent that raccoon text on a whim and Tony had responded quickly and he hasn’t really stopped.

Because Steve knows Bucky well he picks up on what Bucky isn’t saying. “So why aren’t you happier?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

Probably because relationships have never made him happy, but that’s another argument all together. “I uh… didn’t really tell him about the asexual thing,” he says. Things were going well, he didn’t want rejection to happen that fast because he likes the attention. So it’ll blow up in his face pretty much like always, but for now he wants to enjoy it while it lasts.

“So what?” Steve asks like it’s that easy. Sure he’s fine with it, and he doesn’t have to deal with an asexual partner who doesn’t really have much of an interest in sex. It’s easy to be supportive of something you have no experience with but when you’re living it its something else entirely. Bucky knows more than most that people are fine with things at a distance, but have them live it and suddenly they aren’t nearly as supportive.

“So you know how many people have told me that I should have told them that from the beginning so they didn’t waste their time?” he asks. None of them had ever been concerned with wasting his time, or trashing his sexuality _and_ his feelings straight to his face because… they were _horny_? He just doesn’t get that. Enjoying sex sure, wanting it sure, but telling someone they’re romantically worthless and, on one occasion, the equivalent of dating a _golden retriever_? That’s harsh.

Every single person he’s told has treated him like he’s an anomaly, a freak that should either just get over his sex problem or make peace with being romantically secluded for the rest of his days if he didn’t settle in with a nice monk or something. After all that it’s hard to tell people about his sexuality from the get-go. It’s difficult to hear how little you’re worth as a romantic partner over and over again if you have no interest in sex. So he’s stopped saying it even if it only really staves off the pain for a little longer.

“Those people are assholes, Bucky. You shouldn’t listen to them,” Steve says.

He’s right, sure, but it’s hard to follow that advice when one hundred percent of the people Bucky has dated in recent years have dumped him and treated him like a leper. At a certain point he didn’t have much choice but to start wondering if maybe they’re right about him not being right for relationships. Its not like Bucky disagrees with people desiring a sex life; he just doesn’t understand why being in a relationship means someone else’s sex drive suddenly becomes his responsibility. People don’t like sexual entitlement outside of a relationship, but inside of one now its fine because it’s expected. Or at least that’s what he’s learned over the last decade. Its why he’s avoided dating for so long and Tony had been an impulse decision he probably shouldn’t have made given the guy’s fucking _legendary_ sex drive but here he is making dumb life choices as usual.

“Easy for you to say,” Bucky mumbles. Its easy for anyone who isn’t in this situation to just tell him to ignore it because he’ll find someone and they’re probably right, but how many times does he have to feel like a freak before it happens? And why should he have to do that to begin with?

“Bucky,” Steve says softly, “there’s nothing wrong with you.”

He resists the urge to roll his eyes because yeah, he knows that already. Obviously his not feeling sexual attraction and general lack of interest in sex is not resulting in his imminent death, that’s not the problem. The problem is that everyone he’s dated has acted like his lack of interest in sex will result in _their_ imminent death. It gets tiring after awhile. Tony is famous though; the fact that things even got as far as meeting him is a complete fluke. He’s sure that Tony will get bored of him and move on to doing weird celebrity things like joining the illuminati or something. Or being a taking ‘how to person’ lessons like Mark Zuckerberg.

“I know that,” he says to Steve, his tone unintentionally short. “I already don’t care about my asexual…ness. Its everyone _else_ who cares and I can’t solve that with self love or whatever. I guess I just get told I’m a plankton or a dog or whatever until someone realizes that I’m actually human.” Steve winces at that and Bucky guesses that’s a little harsh but he’s bored of Steve’s support without understanding. Its sweet, and he appreciates the effort, but being told over and over again that he should ignore opinions that have a very obvious affect on his life is dumb advice no matter how good a place it comes from.

“Has anyone who’s compared you to a dog even been around one when it’s horny?” Steve asks, frowning.

“I mean… to be fair wanting sex doesn’t really require sexual attraction, which I don’t think dogs feel regardless but you know. Apparently I’m a golden retriever or whatever. And if we’re going with horny canines I think coyotes would be a better example,” he says. He once had a coyote try and go through his uncle’s screen door to try and hump his dog and honestly at the tender age of seven that scarred him for life.

Steve sighs, “I will never forget that screen door incident at your uncle’s,” he says, eyes growing a little wider. Yeah, Bucky would remember that time an entire coyote scared him into having an asthma attack too.

*

Natasha tries to hand Bucky a plate with two cinnamon buns on it and he pushes them away. “I’m not hungry, I ate. Twice,” he tells her.

“Did you actually?” she asks and Bucky sighs.

“Yes. I ate, and then Steve made me eat his terrible experiment that I almost threw up, and I don’t want cinnamon buns now,” he says. Sam thankfully had less patience for Steve’s weird Pintrest food than him and told him that it tasted terrible in the most loving way he could manage. Which was spitting it out and coughing while giving Steve a betrayed look like he was offended that Steve would feed him that. When Steve told him that Bucky ate it he had rudely told Steve that that had been all he needed to know to know the food was terrible.

She considers him for a moment before setting the cinnamon buns down on the coffee table. “So why are you here?” she asks.

Bucky makes an offended noise, “first of all that is rude. Second of all no one else will watch conspiracy theory videos and that ‘aliens’ guy with me. Also Steve’s unrelenting support is kind of annoying me and you’re the only one who gets it,” he says. Though in a totally different way but he’s not going to shoot understanding in the face just because its not the same as his experience.

“Oh my god, why do you even like that guy? His hair is weird. But I’ve been watching some videos on Roswell so I guess we can just pick up where I left off,” she says. “And Steve… is trying to be a good friend,” she adds.

He sighs, “I know that but sometimes it’s exhausting to be told that everything will all work out like life is some kind of bullshit fairytale.” It’s a nice sentiment, and he really does appreciate that Steve is trying to be supportive in the only way he knows how, but the lack of understanding makes it hard to stomach.

Natasha sits back for a moment, taking a second for herself before she sighs. “Yeah I get it. People only really tell you that because they know you, not because they believe their argument.”

Exactly why Steve’s support annoys him sometimes even though he knows Steve is just trying to be a good person. “I just… wish someone would be honest with me for once,” he says. It would be a change to have someone tell him that yeah, his expectations of acceptance are too much or at least give him advice that doesn’t feel like its manufactured. ‘You’ll find someone!’ is such a staged, expected response that people only tell him because they want him to be happy, not because it’s true.

“You want truth?” Natasha asks, considering him in that blank, shrewd way she sometimes does. “Fine. You aren’t going to find someone all that accepting outside of other asexuals and not because people aren’t capable of it. People just don’t get how relationships without sex work. Tell them that’s off the table and they don’t want to make the effort to try and figure it out when they don’t need to. You’re the weird one so they’ll leave you for someone they don’t need to make the extra effort for. Tell your guy you’re not interested in sex and rip the damn Band Aid off. No sense in drawing it out,” she tells him.

Bucky sighs, knowing that’s not what he wants to hear but its true nonetheless. “Fine. Can we watch something on the gay agenda instead of Roswell? I’m not feeling aliens at the moment,” he says.

Natasha rolls her eyes, “you inconvenience me,” she tells him but she complies at least.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony has never really done the romance thing- its never really been his style nor has it appealed to him as a person, but Bucky makes his walk through Central Park feel less tedious and more hilarious. Probably because Bucky has some of the funniest stories he has ever heard in his _life_ and being a celebrity that’s kind of hard. He knows people personally who have gotten their dogs astrologists. Tom Cruise tried to recruit him to scientology once. It’s hard to top stories like that but Bucky manages.

“Oh hey, its that one tree I almost got robbed at last year. The guy was all ‘give me your money’ and I was in a bad mood so I was like ‘fine, go ahead and take my ten thousand dollars in credit card debt and the fucking fifty three cents in my bank account, see if I care’. He felt bad for me so he gave me ten bucks and probably robbed someone with more money than me,” Bucky says while Tony doubles over wheezing. “Hey, don’t die down there I like you,” Bucky tells him and that only encourages him to laugh harder.

“I swear if I didn’t know stuff like this actually happened to you I’d think you were lying,” he says, clutching his stomach. He would know, he supposes, that Bucky’s strange stories are true because he’s one of them. That and he’s actually pretty decent at detecting lies because most of his job requires him to be good at reading people.

“You know what, whenever I meet new people they always think stuff like that and I resent it. Like excuse me, I can’t help how weird I am,” Bucky says, hand pressed to his heart in mock offense.

Yeah, Tony suspects a good portion of his life sounds fabricated too but thankfully for him his adventures are all public record. Actually no, that’s not a good thing but still. People can easily look him up to know he’s telling the truth because someone probably took a video of it. Bucky didn’t so much have that luxury, or curse depending on how you viewed it. “Yeah well, the local raccoons apparently try and steal your prosthetics so nothing about you really surprises me anymore,” Tony tells him honestly. “Also I looked up that flat earther guy you used to know and after five minutes scrolling through his social media my brain hurt too much to continue.”

Bucky laughs, ducking his head a little. “Yeah, good point I guess. And sorry about exposing you to flat earthers but if I have to see all those Flat Earth Society posts so do you,” he says, smiling.

“Please find someone else to torment with them,” Tony tells him and Bucky grins wider.

“But you’re so fun to bother with them!” he says enthusiastically, laughing at him when Tony makes what is probably a pretty disgusted face.

“These people don’t understand science Bucky. But they’re too dumb for me to try and correct them,” he says. It’s a moral dilemma Bucky has exposed him to- does he correct all the improper facts or accept that anyone who believes the earth is flat in the modern society is a fucking moron beyond help. Its not something he expected to contemplate at his age and honestly he can’t tell if he’s mad that he has to deal with this now or happy that despite the flat earthers Bucky is actually pretty awesome.

Bucky nods, “its best to just look in on what they’re doing like they’re a live freak show and then pop out relieved that you aren’t them. Like watching anything on TLC,” Bucky says, entirely way too serious.

Tony shakes his head, reaching out and weaving his fingers through Bucky’s in a way that feels… comfortable. “These people are a train wreck. And here I thought _I_ was a train wreck,” he says, shaking his head. “At least my thought process is in this century,” he says.

Bucky grins, “I have this theory that flat earthers are people time travellers from the future brought forward in time from the fifteen hundreds basically to troll the present,” he says and Tony squints.

“Keep talking nonsense and I’ll have to ban conspiracy theory talk,” he says and Bucky gasps.

“But I’ve replaced ninety percent of my personality with facts on who killed JFK, you can’t take that away from me,” Bucky says softly. “I’m like those people who’ve replaced any semblance of a personality with pretentious film facts. Except you know, with more government cover ups.” Tony can’t help laughing at that- its really not his fault Bucky is so endearing.

*

Ned sits down next to Peter and they put together all the facts. “We should creep him on all social media and find out his secrets,” Ned says.

Peter snorts, “what do you think he’s hiding?” he asks. Ned probably has a whole formulated list in his head but instead of sharing it with Peter he lets out an annoyed huff.

“That’s what our cyber stalking is supposed to expose, Peter. So plug in our info so we can figure out what this guy is up to, and more importantly if he’s even cute. What if he looks like Ted Cruz?” Ned asks, looking properly horrified.

He gasps, “the Zodiac Killer. In all seriousness I think dad has more taste than _that_. Cruz kind of always looks like E.T is trying to perform a prostate exam on him or something,” Peter says. Ned almost chokes on the cookie he’s eating, coughing for several moments before Peter reaches out and slaps him on the back a few times to help him out.

“Ok Parker, look up Tony’s new boyfriend before you nearly kill me again,” he says.

Peter rolls his eyes but after a few moments of looking they’ve located a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and an Instagram. “First things first this guy is a dead ringer for homeless Jesus,” Peter says and Ned starts laughing. “But he’s a cute homeless Jesus so there’s that.”

They scroll through his Facebook first, figuring if there’s going to be anything heinous they’ll find it there first. Facebook is where dreams go to die. He and Ned click onto his profile and read the first status there, bursting out laughing just as Tony walks through the door.

“Care to share what you think is so funny?” he asks as he moves into the kitchen.

It takes a few moments for Peter and Ned to stop wheezing but when they do Peter takes a breath. “Alright. We decided to stalk Bucky online and the first Facebook status is this: ‘payday is great because for five seconds you feel rich, but then you pay your bills and realize you’re chicken fried fucked’.”

This gets a laugh from Tony too and he shakes his head, “apparently he’s like that on social media too,” he says. “He’s funny, you’d like him,” he adds.

He’s sure he will if he makes Tony happy. “So when do I get to meet him anyways?” he asks and that earns a laugh.

“Not any time soon. We just met and I’m not introducing anyone to you unless its an actual relationship. Plus Pepper called vetting him first and she managed to beat Rhodey to it so,” he says, shrugging.

Peter wrinkles his nose, “aw, that’s not fair! How come Pepper won out?” he asks.

“Because when Rhodey tested her she told him she’d ensure that his plane mysteriously disappeared. Apparently he didn’t want to continue testing his luck.” Peter wouldn’t push his luck with Pepper either. She scares him and all other mere mortals.

“I’m just saying I live here so I should get to vet homeless Jesus first,” Peter says and Tony snorts into the drink he just lifted to his mouth.

“Guess everyone does mistake him for homeless,” he mumbles.

“Well as long as he doesn’t smell homeless,” Ned says. “No offense to the homeless.” Peter thinks he’d die if he had irregular access to showers, probably from the smell of his own funk.

“He doesn’t, now stop cyber stalking people its weird. Go like… do teenage things that I wouldn’t find in an American Pie movie,” he tells them.

Ned makes a face, “the good news is that no one here has any desire to have sex with a pie.” Peter snickers, having forgot about that part in the movie and Tony’s soul clearly dies a little inside.

“Well thank god for that. And I don’t even believe in god. Go do stuff that isn’t cyber stalking my date,” he says, making a shooing motion at them. Ned and Peter exchange a look before he grabs his laptop and they both make for his room fully intent on continuing to cyber stalk Bucky.

Ten minutes and a Flat Earth Society post later Peter goes running into the living room. “You can’t date him, he’s a flat earther!” he yells, horrified.

Tony looks nonplussed, “he isn’t, he just has a weird thing for conspiracy theories. Didn’t I tell you to stop cyber stalking him?” he asks.

“Oh my god, he made a post in the Flat Earth Society asking if they all think they should start a Flat Mars Society next!” Ned yells from Peter’s bedroom. “And also that they should get justice for what science did to Pluto.”

“No more cyber stalking, Peter,” Tony says, giving him a serious look. He sighs and trudges back to his room mostly intent on continuing to ignore that order but this time he’ll be quieter about it.

*

Bucky watches as Sam tries and fails to cook something half decent feeling like the judging eyes of the god-like Doctor TJ Eckleburg. His phone buzzes and Sam looks over to it sitting on the table beside Bucky but he ignores it in favor of watching Sam slowly descend into the chaos of failure at the ripe age of thirty three. Though if he’s honest Sam probably peaked in grade school. That project he presented in grade six? That’s as good as he was ever going to get.

“Steve, tell your creeptastic best beast to stop staring at me,” Sam yells to Steve, who manages to pry his cold riddled ass from bed to glare at Bucky.

“Do not make me come over there and sneeze on you. I’m contagious and in a shitty mood,” he says but Bucky has a hard time taking him seriously on account of his hair sticking up in five hundred different directions. He sort of looks like a pissed off and particularly short dandelion.

“I have a good immune system,” Bucky reminds him. Of all the times Steve has gotten sick Bucky only managed to catch his sick once and it had to be the fucking measles. No one even caught that shit anymore but no, Steve’s tiny tot ass caught it and passed it on to Bucky, who had literally been scheduled to get the vaccine the next week. He can’t remember that time of his life on account of being a year and a couple months old but he imagines he was pretty pissed off about the situation. Everyone _else_ though- it was like Steve was a walking bacteria dish and he’s _sure_ all those nasty grade school colds and flus could be traced back to Steve as patient zero. Thankfully for him Sam also has a strong immune system because Steve gets sick every other week and if Sam managed to catch all his colds, flus, and coughs he’d probably never be able to actually do anything.

Steve squints at him, “do you want to test that?” he asks, apparently fully convinced he could infect Bucky.

He shrugs, “I could go for a week off work.” He can’t _afford_ a week off work but he could maybe swing it if he worked a bunch of doubles two weeks after his week off with Steve Sick.

“I tried, deal with it,” Steve tells Sam before he shuffled back off to bed.

“I hope Stark dumps you. I don’t know what he sees in you anyways,” Sam tells him, wrinkling his nose.

Bucky shrugs, sitting back in his seat. “Well I definitely know the only thing Steve saw in you was someone to pay half the rent,” he says, yelping when Sam throws his cooking spoon at him.

“That’s mostly not true,” Steve yells from the bedroom and Bucky laughs at the utterly offended look on Sam’s face.

“Told you,” Bucky says, grinning.

“You know what, answer your phone. Its probably you D list celebrity breaking up with you,” Sam tells him.

Bucky rolls his eyes, “that only counts as an insult if I think Tony’s celebrity status actually _is_ a status and I don’t.” He does check his phone though, finding a few texts from Tony but it’s the one that includes a screenshot of some TMZ tweet that catches his attention and he sighs.

“Was I right about you being dumped?” Sam asks too gleefully.

“No. My D list celebrity boyfriend landed me on TMZ,” he says. He texts back that the picture of him they used was so shitty he’s almost offended by it. Honestly if he actually went out in public looking like that it really is a wonder Tony is dating him. Though its no wonder that he’s routinely mistaken for being homeless.

“Oh my god you’re actually on TMZ,” Steve yells from the bedroom and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, why would I lie about that?” he asks.

“Attention,” Sam supplies.

Bucky snorts, “not all of us feel the need to suck up everyone’s attention like an annoying five year old, Sam. Some of us have class.”

“Everyone in the comment section on here is _convinced_ you’re homeless,” Steve yells.

Sam laughs, “yeah Barnes, some of us have class but clearly that doesn’t apply to you,” he says, enjoying this a little too much.

His phone buzzes again and he finds a text from Tony apologizing of all things and he frowns, pointing out that he hadn’t been under any delusion that dating Tony wouldn’t result in something like this. If he’s honest he had been hoping it didn’t, but not everyone got what they wanted, did they? Look at Sam- Bucky doesn’t want him here but Steve for some reason didn’t think he could do better and settled for _that_. So now he’s on TMZ and people think he’s homeless, most of that isn’t even new so it doesn’t matter much to him.

“Fine,” he says to Sam. “I can live the simple life. Fortunately for me living the simple life doesn’t mean living like a simpleton like it does for you.” He gives Sam an antagonistic smile as Sam narrows his eyes at him.

“Stop fighting with each other, its exhausting to listen to,” Steve yells at them.

*

Tony sighs as Twitter basically blows up at the discovery of Bucky. They, quite like Peter and Ned, go through all of his social media and he goes from being a mostly obscure meme page to Twitter famous in about an hour. His reaction to all this though is to post a tweet saying that he hasn’t had this much traffic to his Twitter page since he said Matt Damon is a bad actor and discovered that there are real, live Matt Damon stans out there. Shortly after _that_ his habit of indulging conspiracy theories is discovered and in true internet fashion people take it seriously and Bucky spends the next hour trolling people who try to explain astrophysics to him. Eventually Tony gets bored and corrects all the bad science in the Twitter threads and accidentally causes the entire site to lose its collective shit when Bucky favorites all his tweets.

“Why are you trending on Twitter?” Peter asks, appearing from out of his room. Tony had been surprised that unlike most teens Peter doesn’t basically live in his room but he does do all his homework there. Its kind of pleasant because he likes spending time with his son, but he does wonder why Peter has broken routine over something as stupid as his name trending on Twitter. That’s not entirely unusual.

“What’s with the face?” Tony asks, frowning.

Peter sighs, “I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but lately when male celebrities names are trending on Twitter its not usually a good thing,” he says and it _still_ takes Tony a few seconds to clue in.

He wrinkles his nose hard in disgust, “oh Peter, ew no. People found out about Buck- what kind of person do you think I am?” he asks, a little offended at the insinuation behind Peter’s question.

“You war profiteered for like half your life,” Peter says, eyebrows drawing together.

“Okay, that’s a good point but no, people just caught wind of my relationship not… _that_. God, even asshole war profiteers have some semblance of morality,” Tony tells him.

Peter’s suspicion drops and he grins, loping over to the couch and throwing himself on it, scrolling through his Twitter feed and snickering at what he finds there. “Wow. Bucky seems fond of trolling people,” he says.

Tony shrugs, “its everyone else’s fault for thinking he was serious when he told that one guy you have to have a high IQ to understand the flat earth theory.” And even if they had no faith in Bucky there should be enough faith in him to know he’d never date anyone who’d say something like that and genuinely mean it.

Peter lets out a loud snort, “oh my god some rando was all ‘Tony Stark is too politically correct now’,” he says in a mocking tone. “So Bucky tweeted him that this is the gay agenda.” Tony snorts and starts laughing, shaking his head and checking his Twitter again only to find that it has escalated into a fight Bucky is winning for no other reason than not actually believing a single argument he’s putting out there. So far he’s designed an elaborate plan of recruiting Tony to the Gay Agenda to Gayify America to squeeze out the heterosexuals. Its so absolutely ridiculous that Tony has no idea how the other guy is taking it seriously but obviously Bucky is having fun with it.

“Well, at least he’s handling this pretty well,” Peter says. “Unless you don’t want to be with someone who gets into Twitter fights that result in recruiting you to the Gay Agenda.”

Tony sighs. “I want to be with someone who isn’t afraid of the fame. Pretty sure the last four hours has proved that Bucky has zero fear of that and he won’t try and be someone else to avoid scrutiny.” It’s a problem he’s always had unless whoever he was dating was also famous- people don’t tend to like the spotlight and he doubts Bucky likes it much either given how introverted he is. But he doesn’t seem intent on being whatever that spotlight wanted him to be and Tony has to admire the sheer guts it takes to unapologetically continue being his strange self even after a massive blowback to it.

Peter starts snickering, “oh my god, he’s responding to people exclusively in memes this guy is an _icon_.” Tony smiles, happy that at least Peter found Bucky amusing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is shaping up to be... not what my initial idea for this was but that's alright. I don't think I'm going to make this very long either, its probably got maybe another five or so chapters. We'll see.

There’s a lot of things Tony wouldn’t have anticipated talking about with someone he’s dating but he likes Bucky, he likes him quite a bit especially after watching his reaction to his sudden fame, so there are some things he needs to say before this goes any further. He considers Bucky, poised over his food with a bunch of noodles in his mouth and he wonders how Peter handles these discussions. Its not the first time Tony has had to mention Peter being trans and he’s come to dislike the discussion because it’s a fast way to find how open, or usually how bigoted, a person is. But realistically Tony isn’t the main target of that, Peter is, and it has to be hard for him. He can’t imagine what its like to wonder how conditional people’s politeness is the way Peter has to.

Or he supposes in a way he does, people were hardly accepting of bisexuality when he was a kid and that’s why he never said anything about it, but with Peter its like that discrimination is turned on high. Tony doesn’t like dealing with it and he isn’t even the one directly affected by it technically so he wonders how Peter fairs. He should probably ask, make sure his kid is ok and all that parent stuff.

Bucky looks at him, mouth full of food, and half smiles at him. “What?” he asks, talking around the noodles and Tony laughs, appreciating how Bucky is unapologetically himself. Tony doesn’t see much of it often- even in his own life he’s constructed an entire personality that the world sees that isn’t really him at all, but Bucky doesn’t seem invested in doing that kind of thing.

He leans forward in his seat though, growing a little more serious because he’s always unsure of how to approach these discussions. “My son…” he starts and trails off, unsure if being blunt is insensitive or useful.

“Is trans, yeah. I don’t live under a rock,” Bucky says, shaking his head. “His Instagram is adorable,” he adds.

What is with people in stalking social media? But he does at least take the guesswork out of Tony’s next words. “Guess you’re accepting of that, then,” he says and Bucky snorts.

“First of all if that’s something you think is a bad thing you’re an asshole, and also who would date someone with a trans kid when they aren’t accepting of trans people?” he asks. His confusion is genuine but he has no idea.

“Plenty of people are willing to put up with something they don’t believe in if they think they can get something out of me,” Tony says. Be it money, business advice, a job, whatever- people are resourceful and selfish. If they want something they can fake it just fine. Thankfully unless Bucky is really, _really_ good at acting he’s not faking his interest or his personality.

Bucky rolls his eyes, “that’s just stupid. And I don’t care if your kid is trans, what’s that matter to me?” he says honestly.

Tony lets out another soft sigh, “I wish more people thought like you. I’ve had people tell me I should do anything from denying Peter his right to transition to getting him a fucking exorcism,” he says, disgust coloring his tone but Bucky laughs. Tony gives him a dirty look and Bucky shakes his head.

“Sorry, I just don’t see how being a gender is demons,” he says.

“You hang out in flat earth chat rooms, don’t talk to me about logic,” Tony says, flicking his fingers at Bucky in dismissal but that only inspires more laughter.

“Yeah- consider that. I regularly read ridiculous conspiracies and manage to find some kind of strange logic in them and even I can’t find the logic in exorcising some poor kid because you don’t like his gender. Frankly if you’re going to go the God route he’d probably pretty annoyed that your wasting church resources on _that_ instead of fucking Nazis up or something,” he says, shaking his head.

Tony is inclined to agree mostly, minus the god bit but that’s more because he’s an atheist than anything against the argument itself. “Yeah, people are idiots but I’ve kind of come to expect to have a conversation with people about Peter before I get in too deep. Saves me trouble later when I find out they’re actually an asshole.” He doesn’t want to expose Peter to more of that than he has to- he gets enough shit on social media and in real life thanks to his attachment to a famous person, he doesn’t need more of it if Tony can prevent that.

Bucky smiles at him, “that’s sweet you know, vetting people for him. Probably saves him a whole lot of grief later,” he points out.

“That’s the point,” Tony says, lips curling up a little. “Glad to hear that you’re accepting.”

*

Natasha watches Bucky text Tony, which he finds one hundred percent creepy, for a moment before she speaks. “You haven’t told him have you?” she asks and he sighs.

“Things are going well,” he says in his own defense. And since he brought Peter up Bucky figures Tony thinks things are going well too, especially since he’s notoriously quiet about him to pretty much everyone. Sure people obviously know he exists, but Tony is quite protective of him and seems to do a good job at keeping him out of most mainstream media. Bucky has to admire that given Tony’s own upbringing.

“Bucky you’re only going to break your own heart,” she tells him. He wants to defend himself, claim its not true but she isn’t wrong. He’s got pretty solid evidence to back that up, literally a one hundred percent fail rate based strictly on his sexuality considering things usually go fine until he explains what being asexual means to him specifically.

“Yeah probably but can’t I enjoy this a little longer before that happens?” he asks. Why is it that he’s always got to suffer, at least in this department? For once he just wants a normal, happy relationship even if its doomed to fail because he likes intimacy but not sex. It’s not like he can cuddle with Steve anymore, Sam gets annoyed and Natasha is as cuddly as a cactus.

He expects Natasha to give him her usual blunt honesty again but she sighs and sits down beside him. “Maybe I’m taking out my own insecurities on you a little,” she admits softly. “I met a guy a little while ago- actually I met him years ago back when I was still with the CIA- but we’ve uh… started dating I guess. Anyways he’s heard all the rumors about my supposedly being frigid sexually and whatever but didn’t know about the vaginismus but I told him last night. I think he’s probably the first person aside from you that I’ve told that hasn’t immediately asked how to cure that,” she says softly.

Cure, it’s a word both Natasha and Bucky have learned to hate. Nat because the only ‘cure’ to vaginismus is essentially doing everything you can to make penetration possible instead of learning to work with it and around it and Bucky because he’s been told by so many people that maybe he has a hormone imbalance or something. They both get treated like problems to be solved instead of people who just exist like that and its left a psychological scar on them both. “Maybe he’s fine with it,” Bucky says and Natasha gives him an irritated look.

“Don’t give me your sugar coated shit, you only think that because you’re all happy in a relationship at the moment,” she says. Well, she’s not wrong.

“Maybe he wanted to do research or something before making a judgment call. That seems like something a CIA agent would do. That and cover up the existence of aliens,” he says, laughing when Natasha throws a pillow at him. “You were the one who said you could neither confirm nor deny the existence of aliens and we all know that’s government speak for ‘yeah its legit but we aren’t going to tell you guys that’.” Natasha smiles though so he thinks he’s on to something with that.

“Research is something Phil would do, yes. He’s got a very analytical mind,” she tells him. There’s a soft fondness in her voice too, just a slight undercurrent that lets Bucky know she cares about this Phil guy more than she’s letting on and he knows from experience with her that that scares her.

“So let him do his research. If he’s got an analytical mind I’m sure he’ll consider how many sex acts don’t include vaginal penetration,” he points out. And there’s the point of contention for all of Natasha’s past relationships. She has no interest in ‘treatment’ because she sees no point in it when the only purpose is just to be able to stick a dick in there. Its for other people’s benefit, she had told Bucky, and she hadn’t much seen why she should deal with the pain of trying to retrain her vaginal muscles to not be so restrictive to penetration when she functions just fine without doing that.

She had been surprised when Bucky had related to her argument strongly- he’s frequently told that he should just have sex for his partner’s benefit but if he functions just fine the way he is why would he do something he’s uncomfortable with to benefit someone else? They both got the shit end of the stick, especially since both of them have a wide variety of alternatives to consider but no one sticks around long enough to see if any of the potential workarounds are viable. Its left them both feeling broken for existing in a way that means fitting themselves to cultural norms is impossible and eventually that takes a toll. For Natasha she cold, distant and she’s got trust issues. Bucky is pretty much the opposite- he’s weary sure, but he’s probably too hopeful that maybe this time it won’t matter and it gets him screwed over pretty consistently.

“And what happens if that happens? I don’t know what to do then,” Natasha says softly.

Bucky shrugs, “then I guess you figure it out. That might be fun,” he says, offering her a small smile. Natasha snorts and shakes her head.

“Well, Phil always has preferred a challenge. Guess this would give him a run for his money,” she says.

“Or you know, maybe he likes you enough as a person to know that you aren’t your ability to be penetrated and he’ll still like you after knowing that isn’t really something you can do,” Bucky says, shrugging a little.

“Your unrelenting optimism makes me sick,” she tells him and he throws back his head and laughs.

*

Peter stretches out across the couch, abandoning Tony on the love seat. “Yeah, but is he accepting or is he accepting until he actually has to interact with a trans person and then he freaks out?” Peter asks and that earns him a frown.

“That’s a thing people do?” he asks and Peter sighs. Man it would be nice to live a life where that is information he didn’t immediately have from experience.

“Yeah dad, lots of people say they don’t care about something but get mad when they actually see it. Think those people who say stupid stuff like ‘I don’t care if you’re gay, just don’t shove it in my face with your parades’ but don’t complain about almost every movie ever having a heterosexual romance subplot,” he says. Or worse, they buy their babies those weird onsies that say stupid stuff like ‘ladies man’ or whatever. Peter finds it odd that people will attribute a sexuality to a being that has no concept of object permanence yet. Also he finds it funny that playing peek-a-boo is basically making fun of babies for not understanding object permanence. Actually babies in general are pretty funny until they throw up, then they’re gross.

“Oh, good point. Guess I’ve dealt with that plenty,” he says. “I mean not the same way, but I get what you’re saying. But I don’t think this is that- I’m surprised your social media stalking didn’t produce plenty of pro trans people stuff that dates back pretty far. All of his friends seem to hold the same opinions though so there’s that too.”

Peter grins, “I thought you said social media stalking is creepy,” he says.

“I had a method to my madness,” Tony says primly. “Mostly because I can’t stand fake support and people are pretty open about what they post on social media. I figure if he’s advertising his ridiculous interest in some planet that’s going to crash into earth he’d advertise transphobia,” he says, frowning at the planet thing.

“Yeah, Nibiru, I know about it,” Peter says and Tony frowns, shaking his head as his brain begins to short circuit.

“How the hell do people even find _out_ about this stuff?” he asks. “And don’t they take fourth grade lessons on the fucking solar system to know their proposed theory of a wandering planet that’s going to just randomly smash into ours if fucking _ludicrous_?”

“Yeah, but schools are government funded and they only teach us what The Man wants us to know. That’s how they get us all to become complacent sheep and then the lizard people control us,” Peter says totally unironically, getting the absolute _joy_ of watching Tony basically turn into that white guy blinking meme.

“Anyone who describes people as ‘sheep’ or ‘sheeple’ are is not to be taken seriously. Stop reading that fake science bullshit,” Tony tells him.

“That’s what a lizard person would say. I hope you know you’re a confirmed lizard person too, but you’re also a confirmed AI who’s aiding new technology into a revolution to overthrow humanity so machines can rule the world. Automation is just the start,” Peter says, getting another white guy blinking meme response.

“Have you been talking to Bucky behind my back?” he asks and Peter laughs.

“Nah, Ned and I get bored so we find ridiculous stuff on the internet and read it for fun.”

Tony lets out a long sigh and he rubs his temples, “just as long as you don’t eat Tide Pods. Or was that the millennials? Are you a millennial or are you Gen Z? I can’t keep that shit straight anymore. Stop reading conspiracy theories,” Tony says.

Peter grins, “I’m Gen Z technically but I’m pretty close to the millennial cut off, and it was millennials who made the joke about eating Tide Pods but Gen Z actually ate them. And I resent your generation whining about it, you guys stuck soap in our mouths as kids to stop us from swearing and now you’re mad we’re eating soap? That’s rude,” he says and Tony snorts.

“Guess you got a good point there, kid. Don’t eat Tide Pods, and don’t consume brain junk food like conspiracy theories. I am not a lizard person nor am I an AI trying to take over the world. I can be human and achieve the same results,” he says. Peter laughs because yeah that’s pretty true if even half the rumors aren’t faked. He knows for sure that Tony managed to hack the Pentagon in the eighties and now he makes their security systems. He doubts that he’s locked himself out of those systems.

“I’m glad our discussion about your boyfriend has resulted in me confirming that you are not a lizard person or an AI,” Peter says and maybe he takes a little too much pleasure in watching Tony’s soul die a little inside but its funny, okay?

*

Bucky is doubled over laughing because Peter sounds like an absolute _delight_. “Stop laughing Bucky, he’s rotting his brain with these ridiculous theories,” Tony says, looking distressed on the screen. He’s currently in Britain on business but Bucky doesn’t mind the digital method of communication. He’s missed Tony.

“They’re fun, let the kid read a little,” he says and he watches as Tony’s faith in humanity falls a little.

Tony lets out this little frustrated sigh that’s honestly adorable and Bucky smiles, propping his chin on his hand admiring how absolutely endearing Tony is. “He said something about me being a confirmed lizard person _and_ a confirmed AI? What the fuck?” he asks, frowning like things weren’t quite matching up right in his head.

In his defense if Bucky found out he was confirmed as a lizard person he too would be confused and also kind of offended, but that’s partially because he’s Jewish. “Yeah. So the lizard people thing is-” he starts but Tony cuts him off.

“Bucky for the love of god let me remain ignorant to all this. And please don’t discuss this with my son when you two meet, I don’t want to see where it will go. I didn’t even know he knew about any of this stuff,” he says, sporting a haunted look on his face.

Bucky grins but he’s not sure if its because he finds Tony’s frustration hilarious or because he said ‘when’ you meet my son, not if. So its not a hypothetical thing to him its going to happen and Bucky… should probably mention the asexual thing but this is nice, he likes this. Teasing Tony is fun and this relationship is easy, natural. Why mess up a good thing? “Oh come on, it could be fun. Probably not nearly as fun as talking to an actual conspiracy theorist but you know, still fun,” he says.

Tony shakes his head, “how do you even engage in a conversation with someone who thinks the moon landing was faked?” he asks and Bucky snorts at how basic a conspiracy that is. Super mainstream, obviously Tony hasn’t looked much into conspiracies.

“Oh, you think the moon is _real_?” he asks and Tony laughs, obviously thinking that was joke. “No, babe, I’m dead ass serious. You think is moon is real?” he asks.

The horror is immediate and Bucky has seen Tony’s faith in humanity fall before but this time it’s absolutely soul sucking. “Bucky… I can’t believe I’m seriously going to ask this but… you… you believe in the moon, right?” he asks in this soft, quiet voice that indicates that he’s truly defeated. His inner demons are vanquished because there’s nothing left in Tony’s flesh prison to torment, what was there left with Bucky’s ‘the moon is fake’ theory.

He lets out a laugh so loud and so hard that it scares his cat perched on the fridge because that has _got_ to be one of the funniest reactions he’s ever gotten. “Yes, honey, I believe in the moon.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I technically finished this minus the deleted scenes I want to add in (the one is just too fucking funny to leave out). The end pretty much resolves nothing, but there's at least understanding and acceptance.

He’s thought about this, he has, but bringing Bucky home still makes him nervous. There are dozens of what ifs but Peter is a tough kid, even if things don’t work out with Bucky he’s sure that Peter will manage. They’ll figure things out together. Granted after five minutes together it turns out that he hadn’t needed to worry because Bucky and Peter get along _famously_.

“He asked you if you believed in the moon?” Peter asks, looking absolutely _delighted_ by this information. That makes one of them because Tony had been seriously worried he actually kissed someone who thought the moon was fake. He felt his soul fall out his ass at that because the _moon_ being _fake_? Seriously? And reading on it didn’t make him feel any better about the theory either.

Bucky nods, laughing far harder than Tony thinks this situation merits. “Yeah. You should have seen his face, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone look that dead inside before,” he says.

“That’s what happens when you tell a scientist the moon is fake,” Tony tells him. “I don’t think you can get more ridiculous than that.”

Unfortunately for him Bucky lights up, clearly taking that as a challenge. “Really? Well we’ve all heard that vaccines cause autism, but have you heard of its much more ridiculous and inbred cousin theory that vaccines steal _souls_?” he asks and Tony swears to fucking god he feels his heart squeeze at that. These goddamn theories are literally going to make his heart give out if he keeps hearing them.

“What are they, red heads?” Peter asks, shaking his head.

“No. Everyone knows red heads are the descendants of aliens,” Bucky says so seriously that Tony has to wonder if he actually believes that but then he starts laughing. “God, Steve is right. You really can convince people of anything if you sound like you believe it enough. I can’t believe both of you thought I thought that was a real thing. Obviously red heads aren’t alien descendants,” he says.

Tony leans against his kitchen counter. “Bucky, no more conspiracies I’m not sure my heart can take it,” he says, rubbing the space over the organ.

“You should probably get that checked out,” Bucky tells him, worry bleeding into his features but Tony shrugs.

“Its fine, its just the bad science. How… do they even know what vaccines… that’s not correct, vaccines don’t steal souls,” Tony says. He can’t believe that string of words has exited his mouth and that he’s dead serious about it too. Bucky… Bucky is unexpected in his hobbies and near everything else and despite the bad science and occasional questioning whether or not Bucky believes in the moon this is pretty great. He watches as Peter and Bucky bond easily, laughing about memes, then moving back into conspiracies, then going back to memes before arriving at politics of all things and Tony winces but they mostly seem to agree with each other so there’s that.

Point is that they get along well and Bucky clearly has no issue with Peter being trans. He’s learned to recognize when people have a problem with it but aren’t saying anything but Bucky’s actions are all as natural as they are with him. It’s a relief because he’d been worried, especially when Peter mentioned the sort of backhanded support people sometimes give out but that doesn’t seem to be a problem here.

“Wait,” he says, frowning. “The Zodiac Killer was active in the late sixties and early seventies. Ted Cruz was born in 1970, he can’t be the Zodiac Killer.”

He’s sure Bucky has an answer to that but Tony doesn’t expect him to say, “time travel,” with such seriousness that Tony questions whether or not he believes that. Bucky sighs, “I haven’t believed the moon was fake, that vaccines steal souls, or that red heads have descended from aliens Tony, why would I genuinely believe Ted Cruz utilized _time travel_ to end up the Zodiac Killer? Also that’s not even a real conspiracy, it was a meme.”

Tony sighs, “look, politics is so fucked up these days that I see satire articles and think they’re actually news and news articles I think have to be satire but aren’t. And apparently I’m a lizard person- to say that Ted Cruz apparently time traveled to kill people in the sixties isn’t even the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard this week.” That goes to Bucky’s moon comment and discovering that he’s a lizard person. Fucking _news_ to him.

“The most ridiculous thing I’ve heard this week is that chakras are alien implants designed to control humanity,” Bucky says. Tony stares at him for a moment, unsure what to make of that. “That’s serious- it really is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard this week but its also connected to our lizard people overlords so I mean I guess congratulations,” he says to Tony.

He shakes his head, “Bucky, where the _fuck_ do you find this shit?”

*

Sam looks hilariously unimpressed. “You know what, I actually thought Tony Stark was intelligent before he starting dating your dumb ass. Now I’ve lost faith,” he says. Bucky is pleased to learn that he’s ruined another thing for Sam because its his life’s mission, really.

“Tony Stark is kind of an asshole,” Steve says, though with more hesitancy than he usually has when stating his opinions. Usually he’s full steam ahead and then Bucky has to punch people because Steve will fucking die if he gets in a fight. He can’t even handle _dust_ let alone a fist fight.

“He’s not that bad,” Bucky says in his defense. “I mean you’re kind of an asshole too,” he points out. Steve looks offended but Sam nods.

“That’s true,” he says, earning a confused look from Steve because the only other thing they’ve agreed on _ever_ is their mutual hatred of each other.

“What the hell did I do to get you two to agree on that?” he asks.

Sam and Bucky share a look, an unusual thing for them to do to say the least, but neither speak. For a moment its like neither of them know what to say so Bucky sighs and goes first, he’s known Steve longer anyways. “I love you, but sometimes I get annoyed when you throw aggressive support at me instead of actually trying to understand the problem that I have. I mean yeah I get it, people who don’t accept the asexual thing are dickheads but saying that doesn’t really _do_ anything to offer support. You’re just stating facts basically instead of trying to get why I’m upset to begin with,” he says.

“I was going to make the same criticism,” Sam says, looking properly shocked.

They stare at each other for a minute, “holy shit. Maybe lizard people _are_ real and we’ve been replaced be them,” he says softly and Sam gives him his best ‘what the fuck’ face. “What? How the hell else could we possibly agree on something? Lizard people are less impossible than naturally not hating the other’s opinion.”

“You know what, never mind. This shit is why I hate you,” Sam tells him.

“Well I hate you because you have a big head, weird nipples, and you like birds for some god awful reason,” Bucky tells him.

“Okay you know what, Steve isn’t allergic to birds and he’s allergic to cats so I did better than you in that department,” Sam says.

“I like dogs equally and he’s equally allergic to those so… I don’t know where I’m going with this but fuck you,” Bucky says.

“Can we get back to the part where I’m apparently not supportive because I’d like to change that,” Steve says.

“Rocky Horror Picture Show is a shit movie,” Sam says and Bucky shoves him off the couch.

“Fuck you. People like you are the reason people think the ‘A’ in the LGBT acronym stands for ‘ally’,” he says, earning an offended gasp from Sam.

“People like you are the reason there’s no ‘p’ in the acronym,” he shoots back.

“Is so, you just have to find the right one. There’s like fifty,” he says.

“Why are you two like this?” Steve asks them, frowning.

*

On the best of days Tony is pretty sure Christine only vaguely puts up with him, but on days like this he barely puts up with her. “One interview Tony, you owe me,” she says even though that is very much not true.

“No,” he tells her. “I’m not going to subject him to that.” Its bad enough that people oscillate between sending Bucky death threats and sticking him on a ridiculously high pedestal, he doesn’t need any extra help furthering people’s absurd idea that that’s okay by doing an interview.

“Maybe we should just ask Bucky,” Christine says and Tony lets out a long sigh.

“Christine, can’t you just leave this alone?” he asks.

She raises an eyebrow, “the great Tony Stark adopts a kid and suddenly stops with his ridiculous party lifestyle only to come out as bisexual two years later and starts dating a guy and you think I’m supposed to _sit_ on that?”

Yeah, because he has no fucking clue why the public feels the need to be this invested in his love life anyways. “Its no one’s business but mine,” he says.

Christine rolls her eyes, “sure Stark, but you’re a celebrity and we all know celebrities are a brand so do your part and tell the public what is going on. Besides, Barnes seems like a fun interviewee.” Tony lets out a soft sigh because yeah, he’s sure Bucky has enough ridiculous stories and conspiracies that he could very much make an interview interesting. But he shouldn’t have to.

“Its not happening, Christine. Drop it,” he tells her.

She considers him for a moment and hands off her card despite the fact that he already has several of them. “When you change your mind call me,” she says, turning and leaving just as Peter bursts through the door.

“What was that?” he asks as Christine barely avoids being run over by a teenager.

He sighs, “Christine being Christine and bugging me about interviewing Bucky,” he says.

Peter snickers, “I mean he’d probably be fun to interview. He convinced you he believed in those soul stealing vaccines,” he points out. Yeah, and Tony can’t believe that’s not even the most ridiculous thing Tony has heard from Bucky this week. That might go to the detailed history of black eyed kids that quite literally spans centuries and crosses cultures and continents until it gets to a story posted on the internet in 1995. The fact that Bucky even _knows_ all that shit boggles Tony’s mind but when Bucky pointed out that everyone has a hobby they know a weird amount of things about he hadn’t been wrong. Tony has a lot of Wonder Woman comic knowledge for no reason at all, not that he advertises it.

“Yeah, but he doesn’t need all the shit that’ll come with it. People are already weird with him now,” he says. Its just what comes with being a celebrity but its still irritating as hell. Sometimes he’d like to go on Twitter and not have some weirdo sending him random shit. He’s sure Bucky will get to that point too because everyone does- fame is only awesome to those who don’t have to deal with the fallout.

“I mean, in his defense he’s weird right back. There was this one guy who was being a real asshole so Bucky started responding to him exclusively in Vines but they were all relevant responses _and_ it was really funny. I think he can handle a little weird,” Peter says.

Yeah, Tony had watched that entire argument play out all over some conspiracy theory involving the CIA and sleep experiments or something, Tony can’t remember but Bucky’s Vine constructed argument had been hilarious. Funny thing is that Tony keeps getting comments from people, mostly people in his fields of study, asking how the hell he could date someone so abundantly stupid while they ignore all evidence that Bucky clearly _isn’t_ stupid. To construct an entire counter argument consisting entirely of six second clips that actually makes _sense_ takes talent and demonstrates a clear ability to research at the very least. Half of the Vines he chose were pretty obscure. Besides that everything Bucky does highlights how smart he is, including being able to consistently fool Tony into believing he actually believes whatever nutty theory he’s brought up this time. Or maybe that’s because Tony has less emotional intelligence than the average brain dead llama, that’s also possible.

The point is that Bucky clearly isn’t a stupid guy, he just as a really weird hobby. One he’s _sure_ would make an interview interesting but Tony doesn’t think its necessary and he’s sure Bucky will agree. “Don’t you have homework to do?” Tony asks Peter, changing the subject and he wrinkles his nose.

“Technically but its English and I don’t know what those stupid metaphors are. Can you help?” Peter asks and its so sweet, really, so Tony feels like a total asshole when he sighs.

“Kid, I failed English seven times before I got a pity pass of fifty two percent. I will be _less_ than no help,” Tony tells him. Peter frowns and Tony lets out a small laugh, “you aren’t the first to be surprised by that but you shouldn’t be. I deal in math, hard facts- things either work or they explode in my world. Humanities are flimsy, rely on interpretation of facts that can be read in hundreds of different ways and all of them can be equally right and wrong. I just can’t figure it out, I’m too used to working with either right or wrong answers.” Rarely does he get stuff that’s in between in the real sense of the word. In between for him means something works, just not as well as its supposed to or something else along those lines. And if it doesn’t work, well, it either does nothing or blows up.

“You failed English _seven_ times?” Peter asks and Tony nods.

“Yeah kid. Even geniuses have weaknesses.” Anything that isn’t as simple as math is his.

*

Bucky frowns, “he failed English _seven_ times?” he asks and Peter nods.

“Yeah I guess. I mean even _I’m_ not that bad at English and I’m not that good at it either,” he says. No shit, Bucky wouldn’t have exactly pegged Tony as good at the subject be he wouldn’t have guessed that he was so bad at it that he managed to fail the subject an absurd amount of times.

“Well the good news is that its not that hard,” Bucky tells him. “I’d know, I have a totally useless degree in the subject.” Technically that’s not true, Bucky had wanted to be an editor and got a job as one too but quickly discovered that editing made him want to fucking die so he quit that and regretted the degree. So really its only useless _now_ but that’s not the point.

Peter looks down at the open copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ in front of him and sighs. “I’m not so sure about that,” he mumbles.

“There are a bunch of dick jokes in that kid, the nurse is hilarious and also there’s Mercutio. What’s not to love?” he asks. Actually that’s not his favorite Shakespeare play but its not a bad choice either.

Peter gives the book another skeptical look. “So do you think Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare or did someone else write Shakespeare?” he asks.

Bucky sighs because he so isn’t going to get into that argument right now. “Focus on the play, kid, don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Would an interview really be that bad?” Bucky asks Tony, ignoring the absolutely triumphant look on the blonde’s face. Christine, he thinks her name is.

Tony sighs, “no, but do you really want to deal with the fallout?” he asks.

Bucky shrugs, “don’t I kind of do that already?” he asks.

“No,” Tony says at the same time Christine says, “yes.” Tony glares at her. “She has a vested interest in making you believe that,” he points out.

“You have a vested interest in making me believe your argument too, I just don’t know what it is. I don’t think it’d be that bad and maybe people will stop asking me weird and invasive questions on Twitter,” he says. Some rando tried to chew his ass last week over some anti-Semitic conspiracy theory he had been making fun of, which had resulted in a long line of questioning that for some reason assumed he was an atheist, and that resulted in Bucky pointing out his very obvious Jewish roots. One of his profile pictures on Facebook used to be one of him almost dropping the menorah half lit. That and he’s managed to ruin every single Yom Kippur since he was born and several people have made social media references to it. Peter found all that information within ten minutes.

Point was maybe an interview wouldn’t be so bad- people already asked him stupid questions so he might as well answer them through Christine and then maybe people will keep their dumb questions to themselves.

“People are never going to stop asking you weird and invasive questions on Twitter. Just be lucky you haven’t gotten a series of unwanted nudes yet,” Tony says and Bucky wrinkles his nose hard for probably different reasons than Tony would. The fascination with naked humans will never be something he understands- has anyone even _seen_ a naked human? Fuck, they’re ugly.

“People _do_ that?” he asks. “What the fuck.” Christine is writing notes and Tony looks unimpressed but Bucky really doesn’t think this will be that bad. Unless there’s nudes involved but that would suck regardless of interviews.

Christine smiles and hands Bucky a card with presumably her number on it, “I’ll make a date,” she says and walks off.”

“Do you have any idea what you just did?” Tony asks.

He suspects he doesn’t. “No clue, but if she thinks I’ll ever call this number she’s got another thing coming. It takes me three weeks to muster up enough courage to call the doctor’s office and that was when I was positive I was dying. I wasn’t, turns out I just have anxiety, but still.”

Tony’s eyebrows draw together and he frowns, “you do that too? Peter hates the phone, its like he’s allergic to it or something. He’ll use his cell all day and he doesn’t care about texting, but ask him to call someone and suddenly he’d doing _dishes_ of all things,” Tony says. “I thought that was a millennial thing. Or Gen Z, whatever the fuck Peter is.”

“Gen Z, I think,” Bucky says. “And no- I mean yeah- but mostly I avoid the phone because phone calls make me anxious. No clue why but it takes forever for me to get over that ‘you’re going to die if you do that’ feeling to actually call people.” He gets Steve to make most of his calls, payback for all those times he took care of him when sick and also for putting up with Sam.

“It’s a phone, Bucky. They don’t bite,” Tony says.

“That’s… not what I’m worried about. I don’t really know _what_ I’m worried about but like… you know the beginning of that Christmas song about Santa Clause coming to town and the first line is ‘you better watch out’? Its like only that line is playing over and over in my head but its not Christmas, it’s a horror movie.” No one his age seemed to get the phone thing either but maybe that’s because phone calls were a development to them, not something they grew up with. Bucky isn’t sure why phone calls in particular are a source of anxiety but he doesn’t like them either way.

Tony sighs, “I don’t understand that,” he admits eventually. “One time I asked Peter to call Pepper to tell her something, I can’t remember what, and instead of doing that he somehow managed to rescue a water logged computer from the fucking eighteen seventies. That thing was dead, no chance of coming back to life, but in an effort to put off making the damn call he found a way to bring it back,” he says. Bucky squints for a moment and Tony laughs, “that’s an exaggeration- the first computer as we know them was completed in 1946 and it was fucking huge. Though if you want to get technical you can credit the idea of modern computers to Alan Turning, who came up with the idea of a machine that can calculate anything you could think to calculate in the first place. But yeah, Peter didn’t actually rescue a computer from the eighteen hundreds,” he says.

Bucky sighs, “this is payback for that moon thing, isn’t it?” he asks and Tony throws his head back and laughs.

*

“Okay but what’s the most ridiculous conspiracy you’ve ever heard about dad?” Peter asks brightly. Tony sighs, slumping in his seat because Bucky has to fucking _think_ about it. That means there’s something more ridiculous than him being a lizard person and Tony doesn’t think he can handle that knowledge.

“I think probably the one where you’re like… some kind of AI sex toy thing? That doesn’t hold much water in my opinion,” Bucky says. Peter wrinkles his nose hard and Tony’s eyes practically pop out of his head.

“People fucking think that?” he asks. “What the _fuck_? He’s my _son_!”

“That’s gross,” Peter agrees.

Bucky shrugs, “you asked for the most ridiculous,” he says.

“Lizard person was more ridiculous, that’s just nasty,” Tony mumbles.

“I mean for me this makes no sense because you’d have to make an AI. Make the AI buy into human gender ideas and then also code the AI to not believe he fits those ideas. Then he makes a transition and you, for some reason, presumably after some weird sex shit stroke his synthetic hairs and think to yourself… ‘I’m going to send him to high school’. Like what’s he going to do, seduce you with his high school history lessons? That theory is stupid from start to finish,” he says. Tony squints, wondering why Bucky considered any of those details important when there’s one very obvious answer to dispute this theory.

Peter starts laughing, “oh my god that’s gross, I’m laughing because its so gross why do I react to things like this? Its not true, I’m a human,” he says.

“Did it not occur to you to think ‘that’s not real, Tony isn’t a pedophile’? Because I think that’s the most relevant argument here,” he says in his own defense.

Bucky shrugs, “I mean yeah obviously but I think if you’re willing to buy this theory you need something more than ‘he’s not disgusting’ to disprove it. I figure a genius wouldn’t really be stimulated by a high school education. And also why even let him out into the world? If I had a weird kid sex AI I’d just keep it in the basement,” Bucky says, squinting at this theory more than he did that damn moon theory and Tony resents that.

“That theory is fucked up and everyone who believes in it is about to get sued,” he says, not even sure if he can do that. He’ll got damn make a way, he’s Tony fucking Stark.

“Ten bucks says he’s got something more ridiculous than that,” Peter says and Tony groans.

“Can’t we leave it?” he asks.

“Well there’s the theory that you’re actually an AI made by Howard to infiltrate the government and take over the world but I think the Peter thing is more ridiculous,” Bucky says.

Tony blinks a few times, feeling his fucking IQ drop at that. “I’m sorry people think I’m _what_ made by Howard? What evidence do they even _have_ for that?” It boggles Tony’s mind the weird things Bucky can recall near instantly. Who even thought this shit up? Lizard people, Peter-is-an-AI-and-also-apparently-a-sex-toy, Tony is secretly an AI with intentions to take over the world- this is all nuts. And that doesn’t even _touch_ on ‘forests aren’t real’, ‘the earth is flat’, and ‘vaccines steal souls’ theories Bucky has subjected him to.

“Mostly the evidence is that your tech is everywhere, but personally that’s more indicative of a successful business than it is to a world dominating plot from a dead man. I mean if Howard made you wouldn’t he have some self-centered motivation? The theory has no motivation for you on your own, just a goal, and I just don’t see why an AI would care to take over the world. Humans suck. If I were an AI I’d fuck off into the forest and never speak to another human again. Shit, I’d do that now but I don’t have the skills to survive in a forest so that would result in an unpleasant death,” he says.

Peter snickers, “same,” he says. “And also I really love pizza so you know, can’t find that on a bush in the forest.”

Bucky lets out a small, annoyed huff. “Do you ever get annoyed that you can accidentally create a human but you can’t accidentally create a pizza? Or like an ice cream sundae or something? What kind of shit deal is that?”

Tony shakes his head, “it really is never a dull moment with you,” he says.

“Says the guy who made me famous within an _hour_. Lets be real, you are way more of a wild experience than me. I’m forgettable, you’ve made history like ten times,” Bucky points out.

“You made me seriously question whether or not you believe in basic _science_. That’s pretty wild, honey.”

*

Natasha curls on the couch and Bucky curls up in the chair across from her as some ridiculously long YouTube documentary on the Illuminati. “So how’s that guy you’re dating?” Bucky asks, looking over at her.

She snorts, “I’d ask about Stark but I know he’s pretty smitten with you. Its almost funny watching people getting annoyed that most of his social media posts are about you or your damn conspiracies.” Yeah, so Bucky has noticed and its… nice. Actually its pretty damn flattering that someone as famous and, if Bucky’s honest, attractive as Tony would even pay attention to him let alone be obviously invested in their relationship. Then, of course, Natasha has to ruin it. “Guess he reacted well to the asexual thing,” she says. Bucky knows he looks guilty because Natasha throws her hands up. “Barnes, what the fuck? _Tell him_!”

“No, I like things how they are!” he says. He doesn’t want this all to go to shit, Peter is hilarious and Ned’s selfies are also hilarious. Tony’s random commentary on business meetings or his designs giving him trouble also make him laugh- his updates make Bucky’s day a little happier. Things are fine without revealing that bit of information.

“You know he’s going to ask questions eventually. The honeymoon phase doesn’t last forever,” Natasha points out. Yeah, he _knows_ that but he sees no reason to deliberately end it and he knows there’s a good chance that will happen.

He sighs, “I know Natasha but I’m tired of recycling through relationships. For once I’d just like to enjoy a good thing for awhile before I get stuck alone again, alright? Is that too much to ask?” he asks, tone probably a little too sharp.

“Well when this all goes to hell don’t whine to me, I already told you what’ll happen,” she snaps back.

“I didn’t need you to tell me that, I have a long string of relationships that did it for me,” Bucky snaps. “What I wanted was something normal even if I know it won’t last and yeah I get your point but why is it my responsibility to tell Tony any of this anyways? You act like I’m informing him of a disease, not a disinterest in sex.” And why should Bucky have to tell people about being asexual only to be rejected as a whole person over a single thing? Maybe its because he has no interest or maybe its something else, but he thinks reducing a person to whether or not they’ll fuck you is kind of offensive, even to people who _do_ have an interest. People are more than that, right? Experience has taught him that no, he isn’t much more than his disinterest in sex, at least not romantically.

Natasha lets out a small huff, “look, I’m just saying that-” she stops, cutting herself off but Bucky knows what the rest of that sentence was going to be anyways.

He sits up, swivels to face Natasha. “Say it, Nat. Say ‘that normal people want that’- tell me what everyone else has since I was in my early twenties. What everyone has told _you_ most of your life,” he says. “And then tell me why exactly either of us should ever have to risk being thrown out as whole people because of one thing neither of us chose? We shouldn’t feel obligated to tell people about our histories. Other people should be obligated to see past that and then if it still doesn’t work out, fine, shit happens.” That and maybe he wouldn’t feel so protective of that particular piece of himself if he hadn’t learned that sharing it with people gets him hurt and results in weird forms of discrimination.

He doesn’t want to hear that he’s like a _dog_ \- its dehumanizing and cruel. He doesn’t want to hear that maybe he has a health problem- he’s sure he does but he’s been like this his whole life and even if he hadn’t his asexuality really a problem to be solved? Because he functions just fine this way- its everyone _else_ who has decided his way of doing things is inadequate. And if someone compares him to a plant or a fucking plankton ever again he’s punching them full stop. Even if he thinks being a plankton would be kind of cool.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chap + deleted scenes.

Bucky is angry, which means this is going to go badly and he _knows_ it but if Natasha won’t shut the hell up about it then _fine_ , he’ll go tell Tony about being asexual and fucking get it over with. Then he can go back to whining at Steve, who will take it all surprisingly well, and then Sam will make fun of him, and he’ll make fun of Sam back because he’s horrible and Steve deserves better. Tony looks worried probably because Bucky doesn’t have much of a temper even when people purposely provoke him- its not really his thing but he’s tired of being told he all but owes Tony information on being asexual and he’s even more annoyed that its from Natasha of all people.

“I’m asexual,” he blurts and Tony frowns, squinting a bit and it takes a moment for Bucky to remember he has a background in science. “It means I don’t experience sexual attraction and for me in particular I don’t have an interest in sex either. Not the scientific term,” he says.

“Oh,” Tony says, not really responding for a moment. “Technically ‘asexual’ as a scientific term is outdated anyways.” Bucky frowns, not sure what the hell is happening and he doesn’t know how to react. Clearly Tony doesn’t either. “So um… how’d you end up that way?”

Bucky rolls his eyes, “how’d you end up bisexual?” he snaps, tired of that question too. Like there must have been an inciting force that made him disinterested in sex because It’s the Best Thing EverTM, right?

“Probably bad parenting and daddy issues. The nannies tried but they only managed to half pray the gay away,” Tony says without missing a beat and Bucky lets out a resentful snort of laughter because that was funny and he doesn’t want it to be. “But yeah, point taken that was a stupid question. Um. Not to be an asshole but do you happen to have any information on that? Being asexual I mean because I didn’t even know that was a thing people could be and I like having all the information and whatnot, make sense to be informed on a thing before you start asking questions and I have a _lot_ of questions but-”

“Christ Tony, I’ll send you some articles just stop talking,” Bucky says, causing Tony to laugh a little.

“Great. Please no conspiracies, I’m afraid of what people would come up with for that,” Tony says and Bucky lets out a harsh laugh.

“Oh, If you ask some people in the LGBT community asexuality is a way for straight people to infiltrate the movement and sex shame them all back into their closets,” Bucky says. Tony waits a few beats for the punch line and his eyebrows draw together in confusion when it doesn’t come.

“Wait, _what_?” he asks, mimicking Bucky’s reaction to all that shit exactly. Strange, he thinks, that a community so built on acceptance would blatantly reject a group over pretty stupid reasons that aren’t even true. But then he’s met gay people that weren’t okay with trans people and that makes no sense to him either. But sure, clearly being asexual is some Straight People Plot to suppress the gays like the Republicans haven’t already proudly taken up that position. Next up, he thinks, is probably the transphobic bisexual agenda and then who knows- could be the Illuminati or maybe scientology he’s not sure.

*

Peter picks up a book from beside Tony and frowns at it, “asexuality?” he asks. “What prompted you to look this up?” Peter had been hoping to put this off for a little longer but maybe he’s been found out or maybe Ned said something loudly. Its kind of Ned’s thing and Peter loves him for it even if sometimes its inconvenient.

Tony looks up, obviously confused on the subject but that’s not really shocking all things considered. “Turns out Bucky is asexual. So weird how basically everyone in my life is a minority now,” he says, squinting a little.

“That’s normal for you though- Pepper’s a woman and Rhodey is a black man. I mean basically the only people in your life who weren’t minorities of some kind were Howard and Obadiah. And Happy, I guess,” he says. He’s not fond of the driver but Tony is attached so he mostly just deals with Happy’s grating humor and generally irritating personality. And his even worse taste in TV shows, honestly.

“Oh,” Tony says softly. “Maybe rich white men really are the devil.”

Peter laughs, shaking his head, “you aren’t too bad. You’re like a high powered demon that mostly uses his power to fuck with the other demons instead of tormenting the poor with bad wages and no health coverage,” he says, drawing a laugh from Tony.

“I mean Hammer makes it so easy and I can’t stand incompetence. I did get that one guy to stop trying to get into politics by paying him a million dollars,” he says. Oh yeah, Peter remembers because there was a solid five months where everyone thought it was a meme or something some satire writer came up with but no, its true and when people finally managed to backtrack the actual story they had lost it.

Michelle in particular thought that was probably one of the funniest things a rich guy has ever done and Peter personally found it even funnier that thanks to the stipulations put on the money exchange said shitty politician wannabe never actually saw the money. Turns out Tony is particularly good at screwing people over, he just mostly doesn’t do that to people who work for him. “There was also that one time what’s-his-face was on about how crappy sex workers are so you hacked his stuff and it turns out he’d been seeing hookers for like ten years or something and you accidentally on purpose destroyed his anti-sexworker legislation because no one wanted anything to do with it after finding out he was in to tentacle porn,” Peter says.

This earns another laugh, “oh my god I didn’t even mean to do that, I just happened to know Sitwell was into some weird shit so I figured you know what, if he’s going to complain about hookers everyone should know he singlehandedly keeps the damn industry alive. Everything else was a happy accident. A happy ending, if you will,” he says, laughing at his own joke.

Peter shakes his head. “You’re not as funny as you think you are,” he says and Tony makes an offended noise.

“Am so kid, you just don’t appreciate my humor like Bucky does,” he says, nose in the air.

“Guess that means you’re fine with the asexual thing, then?” he asks, figuring this is the best way to test the waters here. More… obscure sexualities and gender identities weren’t something Peter ever brought up because there’s a limit to understanding usually and he didn’t want to hit it. He likes his acceptance, even if there’s a quiet denial there too, and he can live with that for now. Its safer this way, less risk of rejection.

Tony considers that for a moment, “I don’t know kid, I don’t even know how to do a relationship like… this,” he says, gesturing to his research. Peter’s guess is that Bucky must be the flavor of asexual that’s not to keen on sex and he wonders if Tony has read on that yet because Peter knows he’s not going to get it. Even geniuses get confused sometimes, especially when confronting lifelong taken-for-granted assumptions of the world.

“You’ve kind of been doing that since the beginning. Just… keep doing that?” he asks more than states because he doesn’t know how to explain that relationships aren’t sex. All that time in the middle, the emotional connections, the commitment, everything that makes a relationship a relationship. Arguably sex is the least important bit considering it contributes the least to a healthy relationship- its not like sex is more important than trust, or supporting each other’s life goals and sex definitely can’t replace those things. Mostly sex is just a nice bonus, but not necessarily a necessary one.

Peter’s words must strike a cord or something because its obvious Tony has had some kind of revelation before he looks over at Peter and appears to have another revelation. “You make a good point, kid,” he says softly.

*

This isn’t something he should have had to think about but its not like Tony has ever encountered this kind of thing before. But Peter had cleared a few things up unintentionally and Bucky had left Tony’s place nervous and obviously expecting rejection. When he shows up at Bucky’s doorstep though he frowns, looking around as Bucky opens the door. “You live here? No offense but if this is what poverty looks like its kind of gross,” he says, eyeing the suspect wall across the room.

Bucky lets out a small laugh, “this is like five steps up from poverty honey, but its not what you’re used to that’s for sure,” he says. Yeah, no shit. Tony’s living standards include ‘no mold on the walls’ and apparently Bucky’s doesn’t.

“You _do_ realize this place is a health hazard, right?” he asks and Bucky shrugs.

“Health hazard is all I can afford. Pretty much why Steve avoids coming over, I think the living room walls would kill him,” he says, eyeing the same wall Tony had been giving looks to previously.

Tony frowns, noting that this _so_ isn’t how anyone should live, but gets back to the reason he came here to begin with. “I introduced you to my kid,” he says and Bucky’s eyebrows draw together.

“Peter’s a good kid?” he asks more than states, obviously confused.

“No- I _introduced you to my kid_ ,” Tony repeats for emphasis. Bucky still looks confused, Tony figures most childless people would though. “What I’m saying is that I don’t know why I didn’t offer immediate support to you. So you’re asexual, whatever. I’ve heard of weirder shit- anal hooks? Definitely weirder than asexuality,” he says and Bucky snickers a little, shaking his head. Tony smiles, pleased he at least made Bucky’s day a little better. “But I introduced you to my kid. When I was a kid my life was a revolving door of people, mostly nannies, but whoever my asshole dad worked with that week too. Plus the mistresses I’m pretty sure my mom knew about. Point is I hated that- hated that no one was ever permanent in my life and I swore I wouldn’t ever do that to Peter. Kid’s got it rough as it is. I introduced you to him; obviously I didn’t do that because I thought you were temporary. I don’t think that still.”

Bucky lets out a small but genuine smile, “you actually think that?” he asks and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Obviously, I said it,” he says. He’s hardly known for saying things he doesn’t mean, not when it comes to this sort of thing anyways.

“You _do_ know we’ll never have a normal relationship, right?” Bucky asks and Tony shrugs.

“We didn’t have one right off the bat. I’m famous and you had me believing you didn’t believe in the fucking moon- that’s not normal,” he says and Bucky starts laughing. “Plus,” Tony adds, “I spent half my life thinking war profiteering was a good plan. That should have been obvious right out of the gate but you know, I’m pretty stupid for a genius. I spent my whole life thinking penis equals guy and vagina equals girl and then Peter came along. I used to think racism was a thing of the past but Rhodey thoroughly proved that wrong, and I used to think basically the same thing about sexism until Pepper. I’ve been wrong about more things in my life than I have been right, especially when it comes to just making assumptions about how people work. Numbers don’t lie, my first reaction to you is probably wrong too.” And Peter had a point when Tony asked how this was supposed to work. It already _does_ so what the hell was he even asking really?

Bucky considers him for a long moment, “is this the part where you call me a plant?” he asks and Tony frowns.

“Plants are sexual, that makes no sense,” he says, frowning. “Do people say that? Because that’s scientifically incorrect and also rude.”

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky says, shaking his head and laughing. “Where the hell did I find you?”

“First, I found you on a step and thought you were homeless. Second, I will have you know that I am a _delight_ and anyone would be lucky to have me,” he says, inspiring another laugh from Bucky.

“Yeah,” he says softly, “you’re right. You are pretty awesome even if your hair is going a little grey.”

Tony gasps, running his hand through his still thankfully thick hair. “It is not! My hair is a luscious brown!”

Bucky looks at it, squints a little and tilts his head to the side, “no its greying for sure.”

“Is not,” Tony repeats, making a note to dye his hair _immediately_. He can’t be old yet, he likes being young.

_Deleted Scenes_

Tony doesn’t understand Bucky and Peter’s absolute fascination with conspiracy theories that defy logic and also basic science but they love it. Everyone else loves it too because they’re now running a successful YouTube channel where they basically talk about fake science for an hour every week. Now he guesses he gets to be here talking about whatever fucking theory it is this week as the skeptical one.

“So,” Bucky says very seriously. “We’re going to talk about Lithuanian poems.”

Peter frowns, “what?”

“What kind of ridiculous shit could people have come up with about Lithuanian poems? What, that they’re psychic and predicted the future or something?” Tony asks, rolling his eyes.

And the Bucky, because he’s a giant prick, looks him dead in the eye and says, “yeah.” Tony reaches across the table they’re sitting at and pushes the glass beside Bucky off the table, not blinking when it smashes against the ground. Bucky looks down at it and back up at Tony, “that was your glass,” he points out.

“I don’t care,” Tony says and Bucky sighs, getting up to get a new glass. As soon as he sits down Tony pushes that one off the table too.

“Why are you like this?” Bucky asks softly.

“Lithuanian poems are psychic?” Peter asks.

“No,” Tony says immediately.

“Technically the theory is that they predicted future events but yeah basically they’re psychic,” Bucky tells him.

“ _No_ ,” Tony repeats. “You will absolutely never convince me and I honestly think this is the most ridiculous theory you’ve proposed.”

Peter grins, “more ridiculous than the moon being fake?” he asks and Tony sighs.

“In a more mundane, not-an-immediate-write-off way, yes.”

You immediately wrote them both off,” Bucky points out.

Tony sighs, “you told me the fucking moon was fake and that Lithuanian poets apparently predicted the future Bucky, there’s nothing else to do but immediately write them off.” What else is he supposed to do, humor this bad science? Absolutely not. Actually _no_ , its not bad science, its not _even_ science. Its not even _theory_ or literally anything else noteworthy. Its trash is what this is.

“That’s definitely not the most ridiculous theory I’ve ever read real or fake,” Bucky tells him and Tony raises an eyebrow, sitting back in his seat and crossing his arms.

“Do your worst Barnes, give me something more ridiculous.”

“Trees are mammals,” Bucky says and the _noise_ that comes out of his mouth is inhuman, possibly even lizard-like because what the flying _ass_.

“No,” he says, standing up. “No, no, no, _no_. You get up I can prove this wrong right _now_ ,” he says, storming out of the room.

*

Sam is wheezing out laughter because although he normally wouldn’t admit it Bucky is fucking hilarious. For the most part his hatred of Bucky is a show even if its rooted in maybe just a little jealousy over his friendship with Steve but at the moment he can’t be bothered to care about appearances. Not with what he just watched. “Steve,” he wheezes out, “come watch this.”

Steve manages to crawl his ass out of bed, sick again but this time with the flu, and perches himself in Sam’s lap. He’s light as a feather, which scares Sam sometimes, but at the moment he’ll set aside Steve’s obvious need for sustenance. He can worry about that after Steve watches this five-minute clip. He starts it up at the part where Bucky tells Tony that trees are mammals only to watch Tony lose his damn mind as he storms out of the room.

The camera cuts to a shaky angle of Tony climbing a tree yelling about morons, negative IQ points, and the world ending as he manages to shimmy himself out across the limb closest to the ground. “Dad get down from there, you’re going to hurt yourself!” Peter says from behind the camera but Tony is clearly too pissed off to care. That’s when he stands, testing his balance for a moment while Bucky joins Peter in yelling at him out of worry and Tony _jumps_ , snapping the branch and both him and the branch hit the ground.

It has to hurt but Tony doesn’t show it when he gets back up and Sam starts wheezing, knowing what’s coming. “He doesn’t even take fall damage,” he squeezes out.

Tony grabs Bucky by the collar of his shirt, dragging him closer to the tree branch, “ _can you milk it_!” he shrieks in this hilariously high pitched tone that has Bucky dying of laughter immediately and Steve too. Lithuanian poems are totally lost in this particular episode but its worth it to watch Tony lose his shit at least until Steve starts wheezing himself into an asthma attack.

_Scene Two_

Natasha sits down with Phil because this is going to be a thing of beauty, she knows it. “We’re actually going to watch a video of your friend doing an interview?” he asks, incredulous but that’s because he hasn’t met Bucky.

“It’ll be hilarious, trust me,” she tells him.

“Hilarious like I’ll think its funny or hilarious like you think its funny and I wonder how stupid people have to be to think the government is poisoning the water to make them gay?” he asks and Natasha can’t help but start laughing again because that’s _so_ funny. When Bucky first found that theory they had a good, solid laugh for probably twenty minutes straight. Her jaw hurt for a week after that but that’s probably because she doesn’t smile much. It doesn’t come naturally to her after growing up in Russia and when she first came to America she thought everyone was on drugs. Normal people don’t smile as much as these people do. In her country they’d get punched.

“Hilarious like he’s going to shit the bed in the funniest way possible,” she tells Phil. He sighs and lets her get on with it because he’s too good, putting up with all her weird shit. “And this is only the highlights of the interview,” she adds. No sense in watching the whole thing if someone took the funniest bits and compiled them.

She sits back and lets Bucky be her entertainment for the moment, grinning when his face appears on screen because the fucking idiot looks like a frightened rabbit looking at that reporter. The blonde looks frustrated and Stark, sitting between them, looks mildly amused. “So, how did you and Tony meet?” the blonde asks.

You’d think she asked him his opinion on Nazis or something with how much he balks. “He thought I was homeless,” he says softly, not at all like his usual self.

“Care to… elaborate?” the blonde asks.

“No,” Bucky says back. At this Tony looks more amused. The video skips to a different part of the interview and the blonde, who’s name is Christine Natasha learns, asks Bucky about his ideal date and Bucky looks like he’s contemplating death. “Not this,” he says, “I hate this.”

“What exactly _do_ you hate about this?” Christine asks, obviously adept at doing interviews but not to people who are as shitty an interviewee as Bucky.

“Everything,” Bucky whispers, staring off into space with wide eyes. Tony has his mouth covered with his hand. Obviously trying hard not to laugh but his face is red and his eyes are clearly watering so he’s not very successful at it.

“Care to share how you feel?” Christine asks, tone just a touch too sharp.

“I feel like a fire ant,” Bucky says, resulting in Phil bursting out laughing.

“ _What_?” he wheezes out as Christine asks what the hell that feels like, without ‘hell’ obviously.

Instead of answering Bucky begins to look rather like he’s swallowing an exceptionally sour lemon while Tony does his best not to die of quiet laughter beside him. “I wish I wasn’t sentient,” he mumbles and Tony leans over his chair, letting out a laugh that resembles a hyena more than a laugh.

“You and me both, Barnes,” Christine mumbles.

_Scene Three_

Peter hadn’t exactly been _opposed_ to it but he hadn’t encouraged Ned either. But even he couldn’t lie that the results were good. When they started a ‘Bucky Shaming’ Twitter account it was mostly because of that one time he actually went out in public wearing probably the most ridiculous outfit Peter has ever seen and he’s seen Tony’s space aged suits from the nineties. Someone had to shame him for wearing a backwards hat that read ‘I feel like a fire ant’ with a little ant on it, jorts, sandals with only _one_ disgusting neon yellow sock on, a shirt that accurately read ‘human disaster’ and _children’s_ sun glasses. People shouldn’t be allowed in private like that let alone public but the account had been an instant hit.

Michelle doubles over, “oh my god is this real?” she asks, showing Peter the tweet. He nods and she starts laughing harder. “He cried because he thought Citizen Kane was sci fi and was upset he was wrong?” she asks.

“That’s not even the most ridiculous thing he’s done this week. Dad took him to some celebrity thing, I don’t know I’m never invited, and I guess Bucky deadass looked _Leonardo DiCaprio_ in the eye and asked who he was. Then when Leo went to answer, probably pretty damn shocked, Bucky was like ‘whatever, you’re not Beyoncé’ and walks away. And then it gets _worse_ because he almost ran over Taylor Swift and then proceeded to fangirl for like twenty minutes about her music. Who doesn’t know Leo but knows Taylor? This is why I should be invited to these things, that’s basically a _sin_ ,” he says, shaking his head.

“He likes Taylor Swift?” Ned asks, laughing.

“Yeah apparently and I’m mad I didn’t get to meet Leo and Bucky squandered it,” he says. That’s just rude.

Michelle snorts again, “oh my god, he freaked out because he thought JARVIS was _god_?” she asks and Peter laughs.

“Yeah that was actually really funny- he was napping midday and JARVIS said something and Bucky freaked out. We didn’t even know Bucky hadn’t actually heard JARVIS before so we had no idea what to make of flipping out over god being real and dad thought it was another conspiracy theory but nope. JARVIS just scared him.” Boy was he embarrassed when he realized what happened.

“‘Called grass ‘ground hair’,’” Michelle reads, snorting.

“I think my favorite from that account is that time his own left arm scared him,” Ned says and Peter starts laughing.

The arm is obviously some impressive state of the art stuff, but after years with no arm he got used to it not being there. And as it turns out his dominant hand used to be his left so for a solid week after he got the arm every time he used it he freaked out at the unexpected limb. The highlights include him grabbing a plate with his right hand and trying to scratch his nose with his left, which resulted in him jumping and dropping the plate because he’s not used to his left arm responding. Another time he woke up from a nap with the metal arm draped over his head and then he tried to _throw it off himself_ only to be surprised when the arm didn’t go but his entire body ended up flopping to the floor from the couch instead.

Or there was the time he had been whining at Tony to remove his arm from his stomach for a solid half an hour, _refusing_ to believe that Tony’s limb was not on his stomach until he finally looked down and realized that it was his own damn arm there, not anyone else’s. Bucky’s adventures with his arm kind of remind Peter of pets farting themselves awake- they get scared and confused but it’s mostly their own fault.

“Too bad you guys don’t live with him, its like reality TV but better because its actually reality,” he says.

_Scene Four_

Tony sighs, looking at the millionth meme to cross his Twitter in the last twenty minutes he swears. “You know,” he says to Bucky, “before I met you my most famous like was that I was a genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist and now its me screaming ‘can you milk it’. This is what I’ve become.” Not that he minds, he loves Bucky, but Christ couldn’t people pick a better line?

Bucky bursts out laughing, “okay but I think it perfectly symbolizes your transition from asshole to dad while still keeping the important scientific bits,” he says.

Fucking Christ on a cracker, he’s _so_ mad that Bucky is actually right about that. “I really don’t think that was meme worthy,” he says. There’s all the memes of people yelling scientific facts at Bucky and then there’s the memes of him falling out of the tree paired with situations people get mad about. Peter’s contribution was being so upset about transphobia that he falls out of trees Tony guesses. Bucky’s contribution was, unsurprisingly, getting mad that people don’t believe the flat earth theory and falling out of a mammal tree. Though apparently the mammal thing wasn’t even a real theory.

“Oh it was _so_ meme worthy. And so is that Twitter account that JARVIS made called ‘Tony Reacts’. I’d be concerned about your AI running a Twitter account unprompted but its so wholesome that if he takes over the world I’ll just accept it,” Bucky says.

Tony sighs because he had no idea JARVIS did that. “I miss my life before I was a meme,” he says softly.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


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